Emergency response organizations increasingly depend on wireless communication technology to provide communication during emergencies. Disadvantageously, however, emergencies often result in damage to, or sometimes even destruction of, existing network infrastructure, thereby preventing communications between emergency personnel. In other words, the existing communications infrastructure lacks survivability. Furthermore, even if portions of the existing communications infrastructure do survive the emergency, the existing communications infrastructure may not be able to handle the increased traffic load typical during emergencies. Specifically, remaining portions of the existing communication infrastructure may be overloaded as emergency personnel, and the general public, attempt various types of communications. Such deficiencies became clear during the events of Sep. 11, 2001, and again during the events of Hurricane Katrina.
In general, solutions to the problems of authentication of network nodes and user devices in static networks have been widely researched, and several algorithms are described in the literature and implemented in practice. Similarly, the problems of authentication of network nodes and user devices in ad hoc networks without any centralized control or authentication database have also been researched in recent years. Disadvantageously, however, the existing solutions are either too complex or impractical and, further, are simply not applicable to a network architecture in which one or more of the nodes are assigned a special role of operating as an authentication server(s) for other nodes in the network.